is still Italian. Thus Northern Epeiros was lost
for Greece ; from the Italian occupation it, at
any rate, obtained material advantages in the
shape of roads and aqueducts ; of the poor
Albanian state it will be the richest portion,
probably destined to pay for improvements in
the more warlike and recalcitrant North.

In June, 1914, Greece seemed on the brink of
another war with Turkey. The Germans prompted
the willing Turks to deport the Greek population,
which from the dawn of history had inhabited the



THE EXPANSION OF GREECE 149

coast of Asia Minor, for the Greek traders were an
obstacle alike to German expansion and Turkish
centralization. In April the writer saw shiploads
of Greeks from Turkish Thrace land at Salonika.
But the expulsion of the Asiatic Greeks was on a
larger scale, and the assignment of the big islands
of Chios and Lesbos, both near the mainland, to
Greece had alarmed the Turkish Government,
which feared their use as a base against Asia Minor,
and had an excuse for its action in the need of
finding homes for the Moslem refugees from
Macedonia. Greeks were boycotted ; foreign firms
were asked to dismiss their Greek employees ;
and an occasional massacre, as at Phocaea, lent
point to the statement made by a Turkish diplo-
matist that " if Greece does not restore the islands,
we will persecute the Greeks in Turkey." Briefly,
the Asiatic Greeks were to be treated like the
Armenians. Only, unlike the Armenians, they
could appeal to a Government of their own race
for protection, and they did not appeal in vain.
M. Venizelos protested strongly against the
expulsion of 30,000 Greeks, adding that the Greek
Government would not be responsible for the
consequences, unless this persecution ceased, and
purchased two American battleships, thus trump-
ing the Turkish purchase of a dreadnought then
being constructed in England for Brazil. The
Turks, as usual, yielded to the argument of force,
the Grand Vizier arranged to meet M. Venizelos,
and their meeting was only prevented by the
outbreak of the European war.



CHAPTER XII

GREECE DURING THE EUROPEAN CRISIS
(1914-21)

M. VENIZELOS was at Munich on this
business when the news of the Austrian
ultimatum to Serbia reached him. Greece
was bound to Serbia by the treaty of alliance,
signed in 1913, and her Premier, interrogated by
his Serbian colleague, replied that, " while reserving
his opinion on the application of the treaty in
the event of an armed conflict between Austria
and Serbia," Greece would stand by her ally in
case Bulgaria should attack the latter. He added
to M. Streit, his Foreign Minister, that "at no
price should Greece be induced to enter the camp
opposed to Serbia." Thus, at the outset, the
Premier clearly and unmistakeably defined his
policy.

The position of Greece was difficult. She had
only a year earlier emerged with considerable
losses in men from the two Balkan wars ; she had
just been on the verge of war with Turkey, and
the Premier confessed that he dreaded the possi-
bility of a Turko-Bulgarian coalition against her,
the Turks taking the islands and the Bulgars

150



THE EUROPEAN CRISIS 151

Macedonia. His own sympathies and convictions
in the general European struggle were whole-
heartedly with the Allies ; they were the pro-
tecting Powers of Greece, while Germany had been
the power behind Turkey ; and in those early
days, before the labours of the German propaganda
and the undiplomatic blunders of the Allies at
Athens, the Greek people was not Germanophil.
But King George, an anti-German, who, as a
Dane, remembered the seizure of Schleswig-
Holstein, was alas ! dead, his successor was a
German Field-Marshal, and his successor's wife
the Kaiser's sister. Besides, on two recent
occasions, in the question of Kavalla and at the
Epeirote Conference at Corfu, Germany had
supported Greece. On these grounds the Kaiser
appealed to his brother-in-law to enter the war
as his ally. King Constantine replied on August 7 :
" The Emperor knows that My personal sym-
pathies and My political opinions draw Me to His
side. I shall never forget that it is to Him that
we owe Kavalla. After ripe reflexion it is,
however, impossible for Me to see how I could be
useful to Him, if I mobilized My army immedi-
ately. The Mediterranean is at the mercy of the
united British and French fleets. They would
destroy our navy and merchant marine, they would
take our islands, and above all they would prevent
the concentration of My army, which can be
effectuated only by sea, since a railway does not
yet exist. Without being able to be in any way



152 A HISTORY OF THE GREEK PEOPLE

useful to Him, we should be wiped from the map.
I am forced to think that neutrality is imposed
upon us, which could be very useful to Him, with
the assurance that we will not touch His friends
among My neighbours, as long as they do not
touch our local Balkan interests." 1

The Premier, however, realized, after Turkey's
acquisition of the German vessels, Goeben and
Breslau, that sooner or later she might attack
Greece, and he, therefore, wished to fight her with
the help of the Allies, declaring that if Turkey
went to war against them, Greece " should put
all her forces at their disposal, on condition of
being guaranteed against the Bulgarian peril."
The British Government, in recognition of this
attitude, told him that the British fleet would not
allow the Turkish fleet to leave the Dardanelles,
even for the exclusive purpose of attacking Greece,
and allowed the Greek troops to re-occupy Northern
Epeiros. 2 The King, however, went back upon
this arrangement, informing Admiral Kerr that
Greece would not go to war against Turkey, unless
Turkey first attacked her. Thereupon M. Venizelos
resigned, but his resignation was not accepted,
and Col. Metaxas, " the little Moltke " of Greece,
was authorized to submit to the British Authorities
a plan for taking the Dardanelles. Their rejection

1 Documents Diplomatiques : 1913-1917 (Athenes, 1917),
p. 46.

2 Cinq Am (T Histoire Grecque : 1912-1917 (Paris, 1917),
pp. 13, 16-17.



THE EUROPEAN CRISIS 153

of this plan, by wounding his professional vanity,
made him, already German by education, German-
ophil in politics. Yet Greek aid was regarded as
valuable by the Allies, especially after the British
declaration of war against Turkey on November 5.
A month later they offered South Albania (except
Valona), if Greece would immediately aid Serbia
an offer raised on January 23, 1915, for the first
time, to " very important territorial compensations
on the coasts of Asia Minor." 1 In two memoranda
to the King the Premier advocated the acceptance
of the latter offer, on condition that Bulgarian co-
operation were secured, to which end he was ready
to sacrifice the Macedonian districts of Sarishaban,
Drama andKavalla, or one-sixtieth of the probable
gains in Asia Minor. But this scheme was aban-
doned owing to the objections of Col. Metaxas to
an Asiatic extension of Greek responsibilities,
and after the proof of Bulgaria's coming co-
operation with the Central Empires afforded by
her loan on their money-markets. Then came
the Allies' attack upon the Dardanelles, to which
the Premier proposed to contribute one army-
corps. But here again Col. Metaxas blocked the
way by tendering his resignation. M. Venizelos
asked the King to summon a Crown Council com-
posed of all ex-Premiers, and reduced his proposal
to the despatch of one division. The Council
supported him ; but the King refused his consent,
and M. Venizelos resigned.

1 Maccas, L' 'Hellenisme de VAsie-M incur e, p. 154.



154 A HISTORY OF THE GREEK PEOPLE

The new Premier, M. Gounares, a lawyer from
Patras, did not inspire the Allies with the confidence
which they had bestowed upon the fallen statesman.
Besides there was a power behind the Cabinet
and the throne in the persons of the King's con-
fidential advisers, M. Streit, a German by origin,
Col. Metaxas and General Dousmanes all three
for various reasons on the side of Germany. Still
the Allies continued their offers, promising the
vilayet of Aidin as the reward of intervention.
The Cabinet agreed to intervene, if the Allies would
guarantee Greece's territorial integrity during,
and for some time after, the war. No reply was
sent to this answer : it was probably considered
deceptive. The entry of Italy into the war on
May 24, 1915, complicated the situation ; for
beneficial as it was from a military standpoint,
it increased the Allies' diplomatic difficulties at
Athens, where Count Bosdari, the Italian Minister,
did not pursue the same policy as his colleagues.
Since 1912 Italo-Greek relations had been strained,
and M. Venizelos, idolized in Britain and France,
was regarded in Italy as an obstacle to Italian
expansion, which would profit more from a weak
than a strong Greece, nor did the Allies' offer of
Kavalla to Bulgaria make them more popular.
M. Gounares' Ministry was, however, brief. Beaten
at the polls by the Venizelists, who had fifty-eight
majority over all parties, he clung to office for
seventy days after his defeat, on the pretext of
the King's illness. The Royal recovery, ascribed



THE EUROPEAN CRISIS 155

by the populace to the intervention of the miracu-
lous Virgin of Tenos, whose image was brought
to Athens, greatly enhanced the prestige of the
monarch who had slain the Bulgars and as his
escape from the fire at Tatoi' again proved
obviously enjoyed the special favour of Providence.
The German propaganda, worked by Baron Schenk,
further diffused the gospel of neutrality.

The second Venizelist Cabinet lasted only six
weeks. The Premier informed Serbia and the
Powers that Greece " would tolerate no aggression
by Bulgaria against Serbia," and, when Bulgaria
mobilized, proposed to the King that Greece
should mobilize also. The King replied : " I will
not take part in the war. We should be beaten
by Germany." When told that it was his duty
as a constitutional monarch to follow his Minister's
policy, approved by the country at the recent
elections, he said : "I recognize my obligation
to obey the popular verdict whenever it is a
question of internal questions, but when it is a
question of external questions, I must insist that
My idea be followed, for I am responsible before
God." This was the divine right of Kings, a
doctrine never claimed by Otho or George, but
which smacked of Charles I of England and William
I and II of Prussia. As it was now clear that
Bulgaria was on the point of attacking Serbia, the
Premier applied to the Entente for 150,000 men.
But a few hours before the landing of the first
Anglo-French detachment at Salonika he had been



156 A HISTORY OF THE GREEK PEOPLE

dismissed because of his reply to Theotokes'
question as to what he would do if, in aiding Serbia,
Greece met German troops, viz. that she would
act as her honour demanded.

Meanwhile it had long been known at Sofia that,
whatever happened, Greek neutrality was assured.
Indeed, the new Premier, M. Zai'mes (the former
High Commissioner in Crete), remarked that he
had taken office with the express purpose of not
executing the Serbian treaty ! Nevertheless, thanks
to his reputation, he received the confidence
of the Allies and the offer of Cyprus. But an
incident, provoked by his Minister of War, caused
his defeat, the nomination of the aged M.Skouloudes
as his successor, with a Cabinet of " old men,"
and another General Election, from which the
Venizelists abstained. It was clear that, as long
as the King reigned, Greece would not assist the
Allies, and might even attack them in the rear. Two
incidents branded the Skouloudes Ministry : its
refusal to allow the Serbian troops, then in Corfu
after their retreat across Albania, to traverse the
Greek railways on their way to join the Allies at
Salonika, and its ignominious surrender of Fort
Roupel, which commands the Struma valley, to
the descendants of those same Bulgarians from
whom the Greek Emperor, Theodore II Laskaris,
had captured it in 1255, but to whom Constantine,
"the Bulgar-slayer," restored it in 1916. This
cost the Greeks the loss of Northern Epeiros, which
could no longer be safely entrusted to Greek



THE EUROPEAN CRISIS 157

troops, the proclamation of martial law by General
Sarrail in Macedonia, and the note of the three
protecting Powers on June 21, demanding the
reduction of the army to a peace footing, the
immediate replacement of the Cabinet by a colour-
less Government, the dissolution of the Chamber,
a fresh election, and the removal of certain
obnoxious police officials. The ever-useful M.
Zai'mes replaced M. Skouloudes, promising to
execute these demands. Rarely had an indepen-
dent state received such a humiliation ; Greece,
as a Greek diplomatist said to the writer, had
" become a public place," in which the Allies
planted themselves where they chose, at Corfu,
Salonika, Moudros, Joannina and Preveza, while
the Bulgarians invaded Eastern Macedonia, thus
making an election impossible. The Bulgars
occupied Kavalla, and 8,000 Greek soldiers were
" interned " by the Germans at Gorlitz. This so
greatly disgusted patriotic officers at Salonika,
that they formed a Committee of National Defence
under the Cretan, Col. Zymbrakakes, repudiating
the Athens Government. This movement, un-
successful at the moment, was the forerunner of
the Venizelist Provisional Government of Salonika.
M. Venizelos had reluctantly come to the
conclusion that nothing but a revolution would
change Greek policy, for the new Kalogeropoulos
Cabinet, although favourable to the Allies, was
powerless to counteract the King's secret advisers.
He, therefore, left for Crete on September 25,



158 A HISTORY OF THE GREEK PEOPLE

whence he proceeded to Salonika, where, with
General Dangles and Admiral Koundouriotes, he
founded the Provisional Government, while the
King entrusted the task of forming a Cabinet to
Professor Lampros, the eminent mediaeval scholar,
a Germanophil without experience of politics.
Greece was thenceforth divided into two camps-
Athens and Salonika, separated by a neutral zone ;
Greek colonies throughout the world took sides ;
island after island joined Salonika, and Venizelist
troops fought by the side of the Allies, while the
attitude of the Royalists became more and more
suspicious. Accordingly, the French Admiral
demanded the surrender of the Greek torpedo
flotilla, the disarmament of the battleships, the
control of the Pirseus-Larissa railway, the Piraeus
harbour and the Salamis Arsenal. He also
obtained the departure of enemy diplomatists,
and demanded the delivery of ten mountain
batteries by December 1. When that day arrived,
a small Allied force was suddenly attacked by
the Royalists, many were killed, and the Queen
triumphantly telegraphed to her brother that
there had been " a great victory over four Great
Powers, whose troops fled before the Greeks and
later retired under the escort of Greek troops,"
adding : " May the infamous swine receive the
punishment which they deserve ! " a This humilia-
tion was followed next day by an attack upon the

1 Documents Diplomatiques : 1913-1917. Supplement,
pp. 82, 94.



THE EUROPEAN CRISIS 159

persons and property of Athenian Venizelists,
while the Premier's historical knowledge was
probably responsible for the " Anathema " of
stones cast upon their absent leader a reminis-
cence of the similar " anathema " upon the
Athenian primates who had supported the tyrant
Hadji Ali in 1785. For nearly four months no
Athenian Venizelist newspapers were published.
Great was the indignation in France and
England at their humiliation. But the punish-
ment was limited to a blockade, to the demand
for the withdrawal of Greek troops within the
Peloponnese, and to the salute of the Allied flags.
The Allies were not agreed ; Kings are a trade-
union ; and King Constantine, in particular,
had powerful connections. Finally, however, M.
Jonnart was sent as High Commissioner of the
protecting Powers to Athens to demand his
abdication in favour of one of his sons (except
the Germanophil Crown Prince), while French
troops entered Thessaly. The duty of communi-
cating this ultimatum to the King devolved upon
M. Zai'mes, who for the fifth time had become
Premier. There was no resistance, for this time
the Allies had ample forces at hand and the will
to use them. On June 12, the King " agreed to
leave the country with the Crown Prince, appoint-
ing as his successor Prince Alexander," his second
son. Two days later he embarked quietly at
Oropos for Switzerland ; the blockade was raised,
and on June 27 M. Venizelos became Prime



Minister of King Alexander. The Chamber elected
in June, 1915, was summoned, on the ground that
its dissolution was unconstitutional ; Greece
joined the Allies in the war, and at Skra and else-
where contributed to their victory upon the
Macedonian front, thus gaining a claim to com-
pensation at the Peace Conference, while, in 1920,
the Greeks, as the police of the Allies, were entrusted
with the task of fighting the Kemalists in Asia.
Minor.

Thanks to the personal authority of M. Venizelos,
the Greek share was larger than any one else could
have obtained. By the treaties of Neuilly and
Sevres, between the Allies and Bulgaria and
Turkey respectively in 1919 and 1920, Greece
received Thrace almost up to the Chatalja lines,
and two of the three remaining Turkish islands
of the ^Egean, Imbros and Tenedos, subject to
their disarmament (Kastellorizon being handed
to Italy). Smyrna and its territory remained
nominally Turkish, in token of which a Turkish
flag (following Cretan precedent) was to fly over
one of its outer forts ; but Greece was to exercise
the rights of sovereignty over the city and territory
with a local Parliament, which in five years' time
might ask the Council of the League of Nations
for their " definitive incorporation in the Kingdom
of Greece." Although the Dodekanese was for-
mally ceded to Italy, the Venizelos-Tittoni agree-
ment had arranged for its transference (except
Rhodes) to Greece. These territorial gains were



THE EUROPEAN CRISIS 161

a great triumph for their author, but some doubted
whether Greece could assimilate them, especially
as they were not purely Hellenic. It was asked
whether Bulgaria, now cut off from the JEgean,
would be permanently content with the " economic
outlets " promised her there ; whether this double
acquisition in Europe and Asia would not sow the
seeds of a future Turko-Bulgarian alliance ;
whether, after M. Venizelos' time, his gigantic
creation, like those of the great Serbian Tsar,
Dushan, and the great Bulgarian Tsars, Simeon
and John Asen II, would survive their creator.
Already the arrival of Greek troops in Smyrna in
1919 had been the signal for a serious riot ; and
the Greco-Turkish war in Asia has proved to be a
drawn game. Italy also was opposed to a Greek
Smyrna, alleging that Mr. Lloyd George had
promised it to her at the St. Jean de Maurienne
Conference of 1917. But M. Venizelos argued that
the Thracian coast in Bulgarian hands might
become a submarine base and that Bulgaria by
her conduct had no claim to benevolence, while,
if Greece were one day to recover Constantinople,
it was essential that her land continuity should
not be broken by a Bulgarian Thrace. He applied
the principle of self-determination to the Greeks
of Western Asia Minor (whom he estimated at
818,221), preferring union to autonomy on the
ground that the latter would only create a larger
Samian or Cretan question, and indicating the
difficulty of replacing under Turkish rule the vast
ii



162 A HISTORY OF THE GREEK PEOPLE

numbers of Asiatic Greeks expelled before, and
during, the war for since 1915 the persecutions
and expulsions had increased. These figures
excluded the Greeks of Trebizond (where a Greek
Empire existed from 1204 to 1461), whom their
Archbishop sought to form into an autonomous
state, but whom the Premier would have attached
to Armenia, and those of Brusa, whom he left to
Turkey. Constantinople remained the Turkish
capital on condition that Turkey executed the
treaty ; and, despite the historic claims of Greece to
Santa Sophia, that famous church was left to the
Moslems. But the " Holy Mountain " of Athos
remains under Greece a theocratic Republic.

When we reflect that in 1909 the acquisition of
Crete alone would have been considered a great
feat, it might have been thought that the artisan
of this Hellenic ail-but Empire would have been
idolized by his countrymen. But three months
after the treaty of Sevres he was a defeated exile.
Various causes produced this unexpected result.
He attributed his defeat to the long mobilization
of the army ; it was also due to his long absence
from Greece owing to the protracted peace negotia-
tions. His lieutenants were far inferior to himself ;
their unpopularity descended upon him ; and, as
Gladstone repudiated the title of " Gladstonian,"
so Venizelos might repudiate that of " Venizelist."
Meanwhile, Royalist intrigues were conducted
from Switzerland, and the marriage of one of the
Princes with an American millionairess provided



THE EUROPEAN CRISIS 163

the sinews of propaganda. Constantine had never
" abdicated " ; he had only " left his country " ;
his popularity as a soldier was great with the
people, while the impeachment of Royalist ex-
Ministers and the expulsion of Royalist supporters
increased the numbers of the discontented. A
plot against the Premier was discovered at Athens ;
two Greek officers tried to assassinate him in
Paris. Then, on October 25, 1920, the death of
King Alexander, due to a monkey's bite, created
a reaction in favour of the exile, and the elections
were fought on the personal question : Constantine
or Venizelos. Meanwhile, Admiral Koundour-
iotes acted as Regent till Prince Paul, the late
King's younger brother, should make up his mind
to accept the Crown. But the elections of
November 14 decided for Constantine ; M. Venizelos
was not even elected, resigned and left Greece,
whereupon Rhalles for the fifth time became
Premier. His first act was to substitute the
Queen-Mother Olga as Regent for Admiral Koun-
douriotes, his next to hold a plebiscite for the
restoration of Constantine. The result was a
foregone conclusion, and on December 20 Con-
stantine reached Athens. Great Britain and
France imposed no obstacle to the will of the
people, while Italy rejoiced at the downfall of
the Greek Cavour. The Italians were guided by
self-interest, but history contains few examples
of national ingratitude such as that of the
Greeks. They have already had cause to repent.



164 A HISTORY OF THE GREEK PEOPLE

The Restoration did not, as had been said at
the elections, bring peace, but a continuation of
the war in Asia Minor, while it inevitably prolonged
the domestic discord ; for exiles, returning after
three years' banishment, wanted the places of
those in office. Nor were the Royalist leaders
united : Rhalles soon made way for Kalogero-
poulos, and the latter for Gounares ; but none of
them possessed the weight and influence of their
great rival in the Councils of the Allies. Northern
Epeiros was lost ; the cry went up for the revision
of the treaty of Sevres ; two of the Great Powers
now have Turkophil policies, the third is wavering.
But it must be remembered that the Greek people
was tired with eight years of almost constant
mobilization, that elections are nowhere won on
foreign policy but on local questions, and that to
win them election agents are as necessary as
statesmen. M. . Venizelos, as his friend, the
Roumanian Minister, T. Jonescu, told the writer,
was " too big a man for a small country." Greece
invented ostracism.

Here, for the present, ends her history. If the
centenary of the War of Independence did not fall
on happy times, the Greeks have nevertheless
made great progress since 1821. First, as regards
territory : while Turkey, which in 1801 covered
nearly the whole Balkan peninsula, was left at
Sevres with only 2,238 square miles and 1,281,000
inhabitants in Europe, and those chiefly in Con-
stantinople, Greece contains some 8,000,000



THE EUROPEAN CRISIS 165

inhabitants, of whom, however, about 2,000,000
are estimated to be non-Greeks ; but outside the
Kingdom there are still about 2,500,000 Greeks,
of whom a million are scattered about the world,
rather over a million remain in Asia Minor, Con-
stantinople and its European territory, 43,000
resided in Bulgaria before the Balkan wars, 151,000